Josh stood hidden behind a rock, looking ahead and spying on the secondary port.

Now that he knew where the ship would be coming from, he could make a proper plan, and scouting the place he would be enacting his plan was the basics.

The first thing he noticed was that the port was being reinforced. The soldiers were cleaning the area up of rocks and shrubs, and he noticed they were also building a stone fence, someone who could mold stones with his hands was hard at work.

'Do you think we can do it?' Josh asked.

'It's too hard… the place is too fortified and I bet the number of soldiers will be much higher when the ship gets here. I don't think we can do anything ground level.' Johan continued. 'However, I think there's a way… The caves.'

Josh looked down and saw a few holes in the distance. 'What, do you think there's a hole that leads in there? They surely must have sealed all of them, and I have no way of digging in time.'

'No, not from below. From the side. There must be a hole that leads to the edge, you can scale the side of the island through there.' Johan pondered for a bit before continuing. 'That will be easier and safer. We just have to clear the way beforehand.'

Josh carefully walked away from his hideout and went to the closest cave entrance. He took a deep breath and prepared his heart.

The first thing he did after getting in was to light a small torch to illuminate his surroundings. He could already hear some noises and got ready for combat. He lowered his stance and raised his hands, ready to activate Reaper at any time.

He slowly stepped forward, and the first thing he saw was a stonerat, one of the reasons why people didn't go into the caves.

It was big, having almost a meter from head to tail. Its milky white eyes were incredibly sensitive to light, but its primary sense came from its big ears.

The stone rat had that name for two reasons, first because it could mold stones with its front paws, and second, because its skin was tough.

Josh knew it would not be an easy fight and got ready. The stones were heavy, but they still came at him with a surprising speed, Josh was ready and kicked it in the nose, making the rat screech and trash around.

As soon as he was about to go at it, the rat got up and tried to bite at him, he evaded it, but the creature spun in place, whipping Josh with its tail.

Despite not looking that strong, the tail whip was incredibly fast, taking a small piece of flesh from his arm.

"Argh!" Josh gritted his teeth and activated his new cards, ignoring the wounds and healing faster, he jumped at the rat's neck and used Reaper, digging his hands and squeezing as hard as he could, it trashed around at first, but after some time, it stopped in place, giving in and dying.

He sat there for some time, and felt the healing card at work, quickly healing the torn muscle tissue and skin. The regeneration was slow, befitting an uncommon card, but he knew that the wound would be completely healed in a day, rather than a few weeks. After the bleeding had stopped, he got up and kept exploring the caves.

Soon, another stonerat appeared, but this one was not by himself. The rat had two companions, and they quickly jumped at him as soon as they met. Josh didn’t lose time and advanced at them, using Reaper at full power for a second.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He stepped to the side, not giving the first rat a chance to hit him, the one right behind it didn’t waste time and advanced, trying to bite his legs, but Josh just jumped over it, evading the attack completely. After going past the other two rats the third rat that stood on the back was his target, and he advanced at it, taking advantage of its momentaneous hesitation to kill the creature by piercing his sharp fingers into its head.

By the time he was done, the other two rats were already upon him, and he once again tried to evade, but his body was already exhausted from the Reaper card. He was able to avoid the first salvo, but the second one got him on the ribs, adding another fresh wound.

Josh felt adrenaline pumping through his veins, for a long time he had been training on how to use his brother’s card and surviving by eating critters and insects while he did so. He didn’t have time to either practice fighting, but now that he was battling, Josh was enjoying the thrill of the battle despite the pain. A small smile appeared on his lips and he felt invigorated, throwing himself forward once again, attacking the rats.

He was soon able to kill the other two rats, and a card dropped after a long struggle, he had to constantly reposition himself to look at the two rats and know when the attacks were coming, but he was able to pull it out.

Mold stone

Tier: Common

Description: Use your hands to mold stone.

Both the card and its description were simple. Mold stone was one of the most common cards in Musharv, as the rats were the most common kind of monster. It could be used to mold stone as if it were some kind of very heavy mud. But due to it being a common card, the person's energy would be quickly spent. Its efficiency was horrible.

He put it on his backpack and rested a bit, letting his wounds heal and ignoring the pain. After a few more minutes - When at least the bleeding had stopped - he once again got up and kept walking.

Exploring the caves was not easy. There was no way to know where you were going, and the caves could sometimes make almost imperceptible turns, making the person go around and around without even realizing it. He knew there were several people who got lost in those caves every year, it was not a strange occurrence.

Johan constantly reminded Josh to leave marks and properly map them. After everything they had gone through, dying due to getting lost in the caves was not an option.

The more Josh fought the rats, the more comfortable he got. In the beginning, the wounds were constant, but with time and practice, the less wounds he got.

Josh knew the rats were scary, and facing them in big numbers would be absolutely horrible. But they were predictable, and their habits made them only have a few ways of attacking. They usually went for the legs with a bite, and when pressed gave a tail swipe.

He fought a lot of rats and was able to collect three more cards, making him have a grand total of four.

After staying in the caves for what felt like an eternity, and getting to a lot of dead ends, he finally found what he was looking for.

The path in front of him led to an abyss, he got closer to the edge, and not being able to shut down his instincts, looked down.

The abyss below him was dark, with only a few clouds that had a dark gray color. There was no movement nor sound coming from it, it was as if everything had been swallowed by the endless darkness, and could never return.

While growing up, Josh had heard many stories about the abyss. There were tales ranging from saying it was the destination of the bad children, to others that said that there was nothing down there, just endless clouds.

Josh didn’t know what was down there, but one thing he was sure, he would surely die if he fell. He stopped his instinct of taking a step back and looked up.

‘It’s the right place.’ Josh activated soul sight, allowing his brother to share his vision.

‘Wow.’ Johan saw the platform that stood almost thirty meters above them. ‘getting there won’t be easy. It’ll be very dangerous to do it the normal way. We need someone that knows how to properly use mold rock to get there, to create footholds to scale the cliff.’

‘Someone? But who? I barely knew anyone, and who could we trust? They could betray us at any moment.’ Josh answered, clearly not wanting to involve anyone else.

‘William could help us with some of those mold rock cards.’ Johan answered. ‘I don’t know how he’s doing those days, but by what I knew of him, he would love to get one over those farmers, after all, his parents died of exhaustion in their fields.’

Josh was reluctant, but he knew that Johan was right. Trying to scale the wall without help would be suicide, and although he thought it would be a long shot, he knew that William was truthfully their only option.

‘Fine. I’ll go after him.’ Josh gave in, turning around and going back to town.